


Intermission

by SevereStorms, wreckingthefinite



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Belly Kink, Chubby Kink, D/s, Food Kink, M/M, Sexual Content, T'chucky - Freeform, Weight Gain, chubby bucky, feederism, food and sex, when you can't be with the one you love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:59:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7178672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevereStorms/pseuds/SevereStorms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingthefinite/pseuds/wreckingthefinite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the cryostasis chamber breaks down, T'Challa expects that his guest will be up and about for a few weeks, at most, and he can probably find ways to keep him entertained until the cryo tube is fixed. He doesn't anticipate how much he'll enjoy himself in the process.</p><p>Two more chapters forthcoming, and we'll update every other day. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You should contact Captain Rogers,” T’Challa’s security chief, Aneka, tells him, as they watch the cryostasis chamber hiss clouds of cold mist into the laboratory. “He would want to know.”

“Yes,” T’Challa agrees, “I suspect he would.” But he makes no move, just watches as the doctors as scientists tinker with the various tubes and fluids connected to the chamber. 

“Highness,” says one of the doctors, “It’s no use. It’s the cooling gas, it’s too unstable.” 

“Unstable,” T’Challa repeats, an implicit question. 

“Hydra uses a highly toxic cryogenic gas to maintain cryostasis,” the man says. “The subjects are enhanced, so it doesn’t adversely impact them, and the Hydra facilities were remote, in very cold climates; there was little risk, under the circumstances. But here…we’re a populous nation with a subtropical climate. The substance they used is banned in Wakanda, as you know. We thought the compound we’d developed would work, but apparently…” he gestures at the tube, and the man inside, and shrugs. “It’s just not sustainable.” 

“Then I suggest you find a method that is,” T’Challa says, mildly. “Meanwhile, we must prepare ourselves for a guest.” He turns to Aneka, who returns his gaze warily. 

“He could be sedated until the problem is solved,” she says. 

T’Challa shakes his head. “No. He agreed only to cryostasis, not to being drugged. Have rooms prepared for him as soon as he is revived.” 

“He is a dangerous man,” she observes blandly. 

“As am I.” 

“And shall I contact Captain Rogers?” 

T’Challa looks at her for a long time, then back at the man in the tube. He’s stirring now, although there’s still frost in his hair and in the stubble on his face, even on his eyelashes, which are full and skim the tops of his cheeks. “Tell me,” he says, “what do you see inside that chamber? A weapon? A problem to be solved? Someone else’s property?” 

“Trouble,” Aneka says, not missing a beat. 

T’Challa laughs. “You’re probably right,” he says. “But let me tell you what I see: a man. A man who can make his own choices. I do not intend to take those choices away from him. He is not to be drugged. A suite of rooms is to be prepared. And then, if Sergeant Barnes wishes, we will also contact Captain Rogers.” 

“And if he does not wish to do so?” 

He gives her a sharper, sterner look. “Then we will not.” 

*

Bucky Barnes wakes up looking beatific, even angelic, despite the bruises on his cheek and the stubble along his jaw. T’Challa feels a deep stab of guilt—this is the man he spent several days trying to kill, just a few weeks ago, and as far as he can tell, Barnes harbors absolutely no ill will toward him. He just looks weary to the point of exhaustion.

“You remember me?” T’Challa asks, because it seems like the place he has to start. 

“Cat costume. Claws. Prone to murderous rampages.” Barnes says laconically, lifting a brow over a sea-blue eye. 

“Ah, but I’ve given that up,” T’Challa says. He means the murder, not the claws. 

Bucky brushes his hand through his hair, moving stiffly across the room and sitting down on the low, modern-looking sofa, opposite T’Challa. “Me too,” he says. The _I hope_ goes unspoken. 

“You are awake because there’s a problem with the cryostasis system,” T’Challa informs him. He feels strangely anxious around this man, a person he has tried to kill and is now trying to protect. It’s not a familiar feeling for him; raised as a prince, trained from the cradle to be powerful, to be courtly, to be _royalty_ , T’Challa isn’t used to feeling uncertain. Barnes is physically younger than he is, but chronologically old enough to be his grandfather. He holds no rank, no position whatsoever, but his experiences demand a certain respect, and he’s not a Wakandan subject. Then, too, there is the fact that he is beautiful. 

“How long was I under?” Barnes asks, scrubbing his hand over his tired-looking face. 

“Three weeks.”

“Where’s Steve?”

T’Challa studies him carefully, trying to gauge his reason for asking. “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t tried to reach him. Would you like me to?” 

Barnes looks surprised, but not displeased. “Not unless you think it’s necessary.” 

“I see no reason to do it, unless you wish to speak to him? Although I do not know where he is, exactly, I feel certain that he is…busy.” 

“Probably,” Bucky says, nodding. With each tilt of his head, a hint of a double chin forms, underlining his round cheeks. The white shirt he’s wearing clings to his wide, soft chest. 

T’Challa looks down at his hands, considering. “My scientists are working to fix the cryo chamber.” He shrugs apologetically. “Wakanda prides itself on its technology, but this chamber was built specifically for you. It was not technology we had used previously, and my people are still learning as they go. It may take some time—as long as several weeks—before the chamber is usable again. In the meantime, you will be safe here. We don’t get a lot of visitors.” T’Challa smiles a little. “And if we do, I assure you they will not be a problem.” 

Bucky tugs at his hair again and sighs, leaning back against the couch. He looks resigned, almost docile, a pose at odds with his big and powerful body, still imposing even without his metal arm. He’s _big_ , a sturdy mix of muscle and heft that T’Challa can’t help but notice whenever he moves. “Okay,” he says. 

“Since you’re awake, is there anything I can get you?” T’Challa makes a vaguely expansive gesture that encompasses the room they’re in, the window looking out at the Wakandan landscape, everything. “You are a guest.”

Bucky smiles, that sad little mesmerizing smile that T’Challa is beginning to recognize with growing fondness. “Maybe something to eat?” he asks. 

T’Challa smiles, spontaneously and genuinely. “That, we can do,” he says. 

*

“We have a saying in Wakanda,” T’Challa says, smiling as he watches his guest eat. “ _First we eat, then we do everything else._ ”

T’Challa feels a strangely personal responsibility toward Bucky Barnes. He could certainly pawn him off on one of his assistants—god knows he has plenty of staff who could undertake the care and feeding of the former Winter Soldier – but he wants to see to it himself. When he realizes rather quickly that Bucky looks happiest, most relaxed, over a meal, T’Challa promptly makes it his mission to shower Bucky with food. 

The first thing T’Challa requests for Bucky is one of his personal favorite dishes, fragrant rice and chicken stewed with spices, served with flat bread fried to a perfect, golden brown crisp. Barnes reacts favorably, dishing up a frankly enormous amount of all of it from the silver platters it’s been served on and then digging in with a neat, careful efficiency. 

Barnes chews thoughtfully, head cocked to one side, smiling around a mouthful. “I like that,” he says, smiling. “We have a few sayings about food, too. Like, _The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach._ ” 

“And here we also say that people who love to eat are always the best people.” 

“Must be reassuring to know you’re in with the quality, then,” Barnes says, gesturing wryly at his huge meal. “This is really good,” he adds, eyeing T’Challa over his plate. 

“Thank you,” T’Challa says. “It’s common food. One of my favorites since childhood.” 

“Poor people food. It’s always the best.” 

T’Challa squints. “Poor people food?” 

Bucky nods, directing a particularly large piece of chicken into to his mouth and chewing politely before he speaks. “Never been to a place where the best food wasn’t whatever working class folks were eating. Hot dogs in America. Soda bread and stew in Ireland. Plov in Russia.” 

T’Challa takes the last bite of his own meal and considers this. He may have a point; he’d certainly always preferred meals like this to the lavish ones that he sometimes was required, as prince, to attend. 

“More?” he asks, pushing the silver platter of chicken across the table toward Bucky. 

“Thanks,” Bucky says, heaping another, equally large portion onto his plate. 

*

“Is there anything particular you would like?” T’Challa asks Bucky one morning after he’s been awake for perhaps a week.

“What do you mean?” Bucky asks, picking up another sticky breakfast roll and taking a bite, savoring the honey and crushed nuts that coat the fluffy fried dough. It’s his fourth roll, but a huge platter of them has appeared in his suite of rooms every morning, so Bucky figures he might as well eat as many of them as he can. He still hasn’t quite gotten over the novelty of eating purely for pleasure, and T’Challa has made sure that the food brought to him is very pleasurable indeed. 

“Anything particular to eat? Drink?” T’Challa gestures to something that looks vaguely like a computer, although not like any that Bucky has seen. Not that Bucky is all that familiar with 21st century technology, Wakandan or otherwise. “We can order whatever you’d like. It doesn’t have to be Wakandan food all the time.” 

Bucky cocks his head, giving T’Challa a long look. He’s handsome, the Black Panther, and incredibly solicitous for a king. Bucky had sort of figured, when T’Challa had woken him up and broken the news about the cryo chamber, that Bucky would be shoved off to a room somewhere, attended by servants, basically a well-cared-for prisoner here. Instead, T’Challa had installed him in a suite of rooms next to his own, and he takes most of his meals with Bucky, and even took him out into the Wakanda jungle a few times, showing him around like Bucky was there to sightsee instead of waiting around to be frozen again. 

Bucky _likes_ him. It’s a bit of a surprise. 

“I like Wakandan food fine,” Bucky says, poking the last bite of the roll into his mouth and chasing it down with the sweet-spicy tea that he’s been drinking every morning. It’s apparently a Wakandan favorite, and although T’Challa has offered him coffee numerous times, Bucky likes the tea, especially when it’s doctored liberally with cream and sugar. 

T’Challa swallows, giving Bucky a funny look that he can’t quite read. “I am glad. But you might also want something else? Something from home that you miss, perhaps?”

Bucky thinks about it for a minute. “Chipsfrisch,” he finally says. Fuck it—T’Challa’s a king, he can afford some snacks. “Potato chips, German ones. Maybe some hot dogs? Candy bars. Beer. Coke.” 

T’Challa gives him that unreadable expression again, and Bucky wonders if he’s committed some unknown breach of etiquette. He’s just a kid from Brooklyn with an unnaturally long life span; what the fuck does he know about how to behave around royalty? But then T’Challa breaks into a grin, all white teeth and sunshine, and Bucky relaxes. 

“Done,” T’Challa says, tapping away at the little computer perched on his lap. “Nothing else?”

“Nah. Thanks, though,” Bucky says, picking up another breakfast roll even though he’s a little overfull as it is. “But I like your food.”

“Good,” T’Challa says. 

*

Two days later, an enormous shipment of junk food arrives, and T’Challa orders his staff to deliver it all to Bucky’s rooms. 

It’s one of the first days since Bucky has been here that T’Challa hasn’t spent much time with him, having to deal with issues of state instead. Bucky doesn’t mind staying in his room. He really doesn’t. There’s a bookshelf in the corner of his room—Wakandan folklore and science texts, English novels, an entire row of science fiction from around the globe—and the room is bright and airy, comfortable and clean. It is, frankly, better than anywhere Bucky has been since he left Brooklyn with the 107th. 

At noon, a pretty giggling maid delivers a cart full of food to him, explaining that “King T’Challa will be back this afternoon, and says to have this with his compliments.” She pulls the lid off of a platter and reveals a stack of hot dogs in soft white buns, along with a tray of condiments, a bag of Chipsfrisch, and an ice bucket of glass bottles of Coca Cola, and Bucky has to laugh. 

“Thank you,” he tells her as she hurries out of the room. 

He doesn’t plan on eating all of it. He really doesn’t. He drags the food cart over to the reclining chair by the window and settles in, figuring he’ll read while he eats lunch. Enjoy the quiet, the peacefulness of it, have a couple of hot dogs and try not to choke on his homesickness for a Brooklyn that no longer exists. 

The food goes down really easily, though. The hot dogs aren’t as good as you’d get from a cart in New York, sure, but they’re pretty good. It’s comfort food, soft white buns and greasy, salty hot dogs, familiar and simple. And there’s something just so damn _nice_ about them, about the fact that T’Challa had ordered them special for Bucky. 

There are eight of them on the tray, and Bucky eats six of them and half the bag of chips before he realizes quite how much he’s eaten. On top of his breakfast, on top of all those sticky buns, and chased down by three bottles of Coke? He’s suddenly, painfully full, all too aware of how his belly is rounded out beneath the soft, worn fabric of his shirt. That doesn’t stop him from shoving down the last two hot dogs, though, even though his belly aches, even though he feels uncomfortable and glutted, swollen and lazy. 

He sips his fourth Coke and cradles his bloated belly, hiccupping gently against his fist. 

*

T’Challa’s last meeting of the day is with his head of security. 

“How is your _visitor_?” Aneka asks, placing disapproving emphasis on the final word. She crosses her legs and lets her short skirt rise even higher up her muscular thigh. The look she’s giving him is one that goes beyond polite interest, one that says she’s caught the scent of something. 

“He’s fine,” T’Challa says with entirely feigned casualness. She knows—like everyone else in his inner circle—that he’s spending a lot of time with Barnes these days. He won’t be mined for information, though; if she wants to know anything specific about their guest, she’s going to have to come out and ask for it. 

“He’s handsome for a white boy,” she says, raising a brow and giving him A Look. “Big,” she adds, pointedly. 

T’Challa gives her the same expression in return. “You find him attractive?”

She gives him a slow smile and rises elegantly to her feet. She’s tall, taller than he is, and the movement is none the less impressive for being simple. “Oh, he is. As I think you know perfectly well, Your Highness.” 

Before he can retort, she strides out of his office, looking smug as hell and not at all the way a subject should look at their King. 

T’Challa doesn’t allow himself to think too hard about the fact that as soon as she leaves, he heads straight for Bucky’s rooms. 

*

Bucky sets down the copy of _Stranger in a Strange Land_ and makes a note in one of the blank notebooks that had been left for him, neatly stacked in one corner of the elegant teakwood desk. It’s a quote from the book, one of many he’s transcribed today. He writes, _Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own,_  and then he thinks about it for a while. He thinks about Steve. He thinks about the many, many men and women he’s been with, over the years, and wonders what it all means, if anything.

A text appears on the phone screen T’Challa had left with him, in a little word balloon, like a cartoon. _Dinner?_

Bucky isn’t actually hungry, but he feels like eating. He often does, when he gets a little caught up in his own mind - because his mind is a panic-inducing place, and whatever chemicals his brain pumps into his system when he eats are seriously helpful in keeping him stable. He’s constantly negotiating a narrow path between the two people he’d been - The Asset, and James Buchanan Barnes – on what he hopes is a road to a person he can live with in the future. Bucky. 

Then, too, there’s the fact that his host seems to love it, watching him eat. And feeding him, leaving little gifts of food in his room or at his door. _His host._ T’Challa. Black Panther. The mysterious King of Wakanda who’d nearly killed him on several occasions, before undergoing a dramatic change of heart. Bucky’s been eating a little – and sometimes a lot - more than he comfortably can at every meal they share, just to see that heart-lifting smile flash across the man’s gorgeous face. 

He taps out _Sure, 15 minutes,_ and stands up, carefully marking his place in the book and placing it on his nightstand. He splashes cold water on his face, pulls his overlong hair back with an elastic tie, and opens the closet. 

He spends his time alone in his little suite of rooms in the pajama-like clothes they’d given him at the hospital, because the pants have an elastic waist and the shirt is stretchy and forgiving – they’re both easy to get into and out of with only one arm. Then, too, there’s the problem of his limited wardrobe - he has a black t-shirt, a white t-shirt, a pair of jeans, a pair of black tactical pants, and two jackets. He hadn’t expected to be at room temperature for so long, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask for anything else. 

He scratches his belly, feels it jiggle a little in response, and looks down at himself, not really surprised to see the way the fine ribs in the fabric of his shirt spread out over the swell of his gut. Which is getting to be an honest-to-goodness presence, now that he’s really thinking about it. And looking at it. _Jesus._

But then, what had he expected to happen, living on junk food for the better part of a year in the safe house, then eating nearly everything anyone puts in front of him since he’d slipped back out of cryo a few weeks earlier? “Gonna get fat, Barnes,” he mutters to himself, as he studies his meager collection of clothes. “That’s what’s gonna happen.” He selects the jeans and the black t-shirt, and changes, painstakingly, having even more difficulty than usual with the top fly button. 

He has a looped piece of wire he uses, one end hooked to the doorknob of the bathroom door, the other poked through the buttonhole and around the button, so that all he has to do is lean back, and his jeans button themselves. Except now, he has to lean back _hard,_ and as soon as he leans forward and releases the hook, the jeans come undone again. 

“Shit,” he says aloud, looking at himself in the mirror over the sink. His belly rounds out over the top of his fly, and the waistband is tight around his hips, digging into his skin. It’s not the end of the world – he slips his belt through the belt loops and buckles it loosely, then untucks his shirt. No one will be able to tell that his fly is partially undone, but the shirt is tight, clinging to the contours of an undeniable curve of gut. It’s embarrassing, because he can’t possibly be any fatter than he’d been yesterday – he just hadn’t really _noticed._ Had T’Challa noticed? Is it even remotely possible that he might not have? 

Embarrassment. Not the worst emotion to have; and then, hard on its heels, there’s relief. Relief, because he sure as hell doesn’t look like the world’s deadliest assassin, not anymore. He looks gentler, less threatening, his face less angular, his shoulders as softly rounded as his belly. It’s not bad, actually. It’s just a little uncomfortable, for now, in the too-tight jeans. This is, on balance, probably a good thing. 

He wonders how long it will be before the cryostasis chamber is repaired. Would it be acceptable to ask T’Challa to order him some new clothes? He glances over at the little computer on the desk and wonders if he could do it himself. He’s going to have to do one or the other, and soon. 

* “What am I supposed to call you?” Bucky asks, when he meets T’Challa in the lobby outside their rooms that evening. T’Challa lets his gaze linger over the man, taking in the blurring jawline, the way his soft belly nudges up against the fabric of his t-shirt. His arm looks bigger too, softer. It sets off a quick series of sparks in T’Challa’s chest. “I mean, I know the protocol. It’s all here,” he taps the side of his head. “And I’m happy to refer to you as ‘highness’ if that’s the right thing to do, but…” he shrugs his heavy shoulders. “That doesn’t feel right. And I can’t just keep calling you ‘You.’” 

T’Challa thinks about that for a long moment. Only his family calls him by his given name, and his handful of close friends. Barnes isn’t even capable of saying the word “highness” without a certain American irreverence, so that won’t do – and it’s not what he wants, anyway. “T’Challa will do,” he says. “And you? Do you, ah, have a preference?” 

“Bucky,” Bucky says. He holds out his hand, and T’Challa takes it. “Pleased to meet you, T’Challa,” Bucky says. 

“Yes, I suppose we have rather skipped over many of the formalities,” T’Challa replies. He doesn’t release Bucky’s hand. “I suppose I also owe you an apology.” 

“No hard feelings,” Bucky says. “I appreciate your helping Steve. And me.” 

T’Challa opens his mouth to ask a question, then closes it again, biting it back, but it’s too late; Barnes – Bucky – catches it, and smiles, shaking his head. 

“Just ask,” Bucky says. “Whatever it is. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last 99 years, it’s not to wait, not to hold back. So just ask.” 

T’Challa shrugs. “Very well,” he says, hesitating only slightly before asking, “You and Captain Rogers. You are…very good friends?” 

Bucky smiles, and his eyes go soft, like they always do when the topic of Steve Rogers comes up. “The best,” he says. 

“You love him,” T’Challa says. 

“Course I do.” 

“He certainly loves you. The way he fought for you…I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

“Yeah, well, we’ve known each other a long time.” Bucky says. He takes a deep breath, meets T’Challa’s eyes. “But if you’re asking what I think you’re asking…the answer is ‘yes’ to that, too. We were everything to each other, back before the war. Before World War II,” he adds, evidently recalling that there have, since then, been other wars. 

“Ah,” T’Challa says, with a flicker of disappointment. “And now?” 

“I don’t know, I’d say we left things pretty open-ended,” Bucky says, with a slow smile. “Wouldn’t you? 

“I suppose I would,” T’Challa says, and the disappointment evaporates, leaving a pleasant warmth behind. 

* 


	2. Chapter 2

T’Challa is unreasonably happy after discovering that Steve and Bucky aren’t currently a thing, whatever past they might share. Probably happier than he should be. And T’Challa isn’t stupid. He saw what Steve Rogers was willing to give up for Bucky Barnes. He knows that the two of them are connected in ways that are deeper than he can probably fathom.

But they also are not, currently, romantically entangled. They are “pretty open-ended,” in Bucky’s words. Which means that T’Challa doesn’t have to feel guilty for constantly finding himself in Bucky’s rooms, just to spend time with the man. 

Unfortunately, he does still have to feel guilty about the—ah, the other things that are happening when T’Challa visits Bucky. 

The food. T’Challa knows he should feel guilty about the food. It started innocently enough—truly. Food is a cultural rite of passage, not just for Wakandans but for the whole damned world, as far as T’Challa can tell. Diplomatic missions almost always begin and end with shared food. It’s how people connect, relax, share history and culture and pleasure. It’s just the nice thing to do, to offer a meal to your guest. 

T’Challa may have taken that sentiment a bit too much to heart, because somehow, in the now three weeks that Bucky has been thawed out and ambling around T’Challa’s wing of the palace, T’Challa has spent a small fortune on food—everything from Wakandan delicacies to American junk food to German potato chips—and Bucky has been eating it. All of it. 

Which, in and of itself, is nothing to feel guilty for, except that in the last few days, all T’Challa can do when he walks into Bucky’s rooms is stare at how Bucky’s shirts are clinging to the soft curve of his gut—a tummy that used to be just a shadow of softness and is now a full blown belly, however small—and at how nothing the man is wearing looks even remotely comfortable, like he’s ten pounds of flour shoved into an eight pound sack. 

All T’Challa can notice is the way that Bucky’s breathing grows shallow and soft, his eyes heavy and calm, like seas after a storm, when he’s full. When he’s obviously, completely full. 

Not just full. Overfed, clearly stuffed past the point of comfort. 

If T’Challa were a normal person—a responsible person—he’d stop ordering all the junk food, stop sending Bucky platters of breakfast rolls meant to serve a family of five every morning. He’d back off, a little, quit spending quite so much time in Bucky’s rooms, inviting Bucky out to see this or that in the kingdom, like a child showing off his toys. And he’d certainly, definitely, without question stop staring at the way that Bucky looks perilously close to bursting out of his clothes. 

The thing about being the King of Wakanda, though, is that there isn’t anyone, really, to tell T’Challa not to do something. Oh, sure, he has advisors, but they mostly talk to him about matters of state, borders and land disputes, questions of international diplomacy and goodwill. The only person, truly, who treads near to giving him personal advice is Aneka, and she seems weirdly interested—but not particularly judgmental—about his current situation with Bucky. 

Just yesterday, she and Ayo had walked past him and Bucky in one of their storage areas, where T’Challa was showing Bucky some of their newest weapons tech. Aneka had caught T’Challa’s eye over Bucky’s shoulder, given Bucky a solicitous up-and-down, from his shoulders to the curve of his ass and down to his thick thighs, and then had the audacity to _wink_. 

T’Challa should probably do something about her insubordination, but it feels good to have someone—well, now that Bucky’s here, two someones—who don’t _only_ think of him as their liege. Aneka would die for her king in a heartbeat, T’Challa has no doubts, but she also sees him as something of a—friend? Comrade? Whatever it is, T’Challa welcomes it. And Bucky? Bucky doesn’t give a tinker’s damn that T’Challa is anyone’s king, as far as T’Challa can tell. 

*

Another two days pass—agonizing days in which T’Challa continues to have copious amounts of food delivered to Bucky’s room, and Bucky continues to eat it—before T’Challa has another opportunity to truly spend time with his guest. 

Again, he doesn’t allow himself to think too deeply about his decision to join Bucky for breakfast. He just does it. He doesn’t even bother sending a text first, just pads down the hallway that connects their two suites and taps lightly on Bucky’s door. 

There’s no response at first, and T’Challa wonders if Bucky might still be sleeping. It’s not even 9:00, and he realizes that perhaps he hasn’t considered that not everyone rises as early as he does. 

He’s almost ready to turn back when the door opens just a crack. T’Challa can see Bucky’s body through the gap, angled defensively, as if he wants to make sure whoever is tapping at his door isn’t an enemy. No matter that T’Challa has told him over and over that he’s safe here, no matter that T’Challa’s entire wing of the palace is guarded by security three deep at every corner and entrance. 

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” T’Challa asks, feeling his cheeks heat a little. He shouldn’t have come so early. Should have texted first. Bucky has a phone and uses it—he even sent back an emoji the other day. (It was of a slice of pizza, which was only tangentially related to T’Challa’s query about lunch, but it had prompted T’Challa to instruct the kitchen staff to make pizzas. They are supposedly going to serve them tonight.) “Nah, nah, it’s fine,” Bucky says, and the door swings open. “Come on in.” 

T’Challa follows him inside, watching as Barnes ambles across the room to the little table by the window, where the maid has laid out his breakfast. T’Challa knows what gets delivered to Bucky’s room everyone morning—he’s the one who orders it—but it’s still a little shocking to see it all laid out there. A huge tray of breakfast rolls, one of which Bucky is currently eating. A platter of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, already picked clean. A pot of the tea Bucky likes, along with a pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar. A tray of fresh fruit, a bowl of whipped cream. 

Bucky plops down at the table and nods toward the opposite chair, which T’Challa takes, eyes never leaving Bucky as he leans forward and pours himself another cup of tea and then douses it with enough cream and sugar so as to render it almost unrecognizable. 

The position he’s in, leaning forward to reach across the table, makes the white cotton of his tank top stretch tight over his broad, just-starting-to-soften chest, even tighter over the pooch of his belly. His gut is noticeably, undeniably rolling over the waistband of his pajama bottoms, which look like they’re nearly cutting him in half around his thick waist. 

“Well?” Bucky gives him a look, and T’Challa blinks a few times, trying to gather himself. 

“Ah, excuse me, what was that?” T’Challa says, doing his best to pretend he wasn’t blatantly ogling his visibly expanding guest. 

Bucky sets his cup down and grabs another breakfast roll, biting into it absently. “The chamber? How’s it going?”

The chamber. Of course. That’s the point of all of this. That’s why Bucky’s here. Not to eat Wakandan food and grow fat on T’Challa’s hospitality. Of course. 

“The team of scientists is still working,” T’Challa says honestly. “The heat, the humidity here—it changes the way that things must be done. It will be another week, possibly two. At least.” 

He’s repeating this verbatim from the meeting he had with his lead scientist yesterday afternoon, but he has to admit to himself that the slightly disappointed air with which he delivers the new is a put-on. He has no real, vested interest in shoving Bucky back into the ice. He likes him here just fine—and he’s safe. T’Challa will see to it. 

Bucky nods, the last bite of sweet roll disappearing between his pretty pink lips. To T’Challa’s secret, well-disguised delight, he promptly reaches for another, as if he’s not even aware of what he’s doing. He’s just mindlessly eating them because they’re in front of him. 

T’Challa pours himself a cup of tea, telling himself to look somewhere besides Bucky’s tubby midsection. 

Bucky shifts in his chair, setting down his pastry and tugging a little at the waistband of his pajamas, like he’s trying to make room. 

T’Challa gives up trying not to stare. “Since you are going to be awake for a bit longer, is there anything else you need?” he asks. 

Bucky raises his eyebrows, fixing T’Challa with a slightly amused look. “You send me enough food to feed an army every day—what else could I need?” 

T’Challa refuses to let himself blush. He’s a goddamn king. “I meant besides food,” he amends. “Other clothes, perhaps? I know you weren’t expecting to need much.” 

Bucky blinks, a funny expression flitting across his face, part self-deprecation and part…something else. “Clothes would—uh, clothes would be good.” He shifts again, and T’Challa can’t but notice how the tank top Bucky’s wearing highlights the softness of his chest, the convex angle of his tummy as it curves out below his pecs. 

“Perhaps something a bit looser?” T’Challa asks, and _holy gods_. Why is he pushing this issue? He’s practically saying, ‘Hey buddy, you look like you’re about to burst at the seams,’ but he can’t seem to resist. 

Bucky gives T’Challa another one of those funny looks, shoving the last bite of yet another roll into his mouth and then sliding his hand across the soft curve of his gut. “Wouldn’t hurt. You feed your guests really well here.” 

*

There’s no logical reason for it to be true, but Bucky is fairly certain that T’Challa gets flustered watching him eat. 

Which makes no sense. Especially since T’Challa keeps sending him all the fucking food in the first place. If Bucky’s breaking some cardinal rule of etiquette by eating kind of a lot—okay, by stuffing his face at every meal as a fucked up way to cope with trauma and also because he’s hungry and it tastes good and he can’t think of a compelling reason not to do it—then surely T’Challa wouldn’t keep feeding him like this. 

Maybe it’s some sort of gluttonous American thing? Maybe T’Challa’s disgusted by him. 

Although Bucky is pretty sure that’s not the case. He’s good at reading people—he always has been, when he was James Barnes and when he was the Winter Soldier and now, as he tries to figure out who the hell Bucky is—and he’s pretty certain that T’Challa is not even remotely disgusted by him. 

Fascinated, maybe.

Whatever it is, Bucky’s still thinking about it when T’Challa leaves after drinking a few cups of tea, promising to be back after lunch, after he’s finished doing whatever it is that the king of the only never-conquered nation in Africa does. 

He’s still thinking about it while he jerks off in the shower, running a hand over the pudgy roundness of his comfortably full, bloated belly and down to his cock, closing his eyes under the warm spray. 

He’s still thinking about it while he putters around his room, picking up _Stranger in a Strange Land_ and then setting it back down again half a dozen times. 

He’s still thinking about it when the pretty girl with the food cart comes in and delivers him lunch, a feast of roasted lamb and fried flat bread and sautéed vegetables, served with six-- _six_ \--glass bottles of Coca Cola in an ice bucket and an entire platter of little pastries that look like something between cookies and cupcakes. 

Because he’s still thinking about it—about food and excess, about what it means that T’Challa is presenting him with all of this and then watching him glut himself on it day after day—he eats like he’s got something to prove. Working through the rack of lamb like it’s nothing, following up each bite with chunks of bread and bites of vegetables, some of which are completely unfamiliar, but all perfectly seasoned.

There’s probably enough lamb to serve three adults. Bucky eats it all, along with the flat bread and vegetables, washing it down with two bottles of Coke. Each mouthful tastes _good_ , warm and comforting and carefully prepared. It’s funny; Bucky sometimes ate a lot—too much, the truth is that he sometimes ate too much—when he was back in his little apartment in Bucharest. He’d stuff himself on junk food, potato chips or candy bars, prepackaged snacks that were cheap and easy to eat mindlessly. It didn’t, exactly, feel good. Sometimes a belly full of potato chips and cheap chocolate bars felt miserable, honestly. But it also, sometimes, felt not so bad. And sometimes—sometimes having a full, hard belly, swollen with too much food, felt strangely nice when he would lie down at night to try to sleep. 

Eating too much now, too much of this good, well-prepared food, is better. It feels comforting. It feels like being taken care of. 

It feels so good that he opens a third bottle of Coke and starts working through the little pastries. They’re denser than cake but not quite like a cookie, covered with a creamy vanilla-and-cinnamon frosting. 

Bucky eats them, one at a time, washing each one down with a draw of Coke, eating long past the point when his stomach hurts. 

When he’s done, when he’s finished the last bottle of soda and shoved the last pastry into his mouth, hiccupping painfully as he chews, his belly is visibly swollen again, a tubby little ball of fat protruding from his thick torso. 

He feels chubby. He _looks_ chubby.

He’s sprawled out on the sofa, pushing a little on the side of his swollen tummy as if he can, maybe, rearrange the contents of his overstuffed gut enough to make himself comfortable, when T’Challa raps at his door and Bucky suddenly remembers that T’Challa had mentioned taking Bucky out this afternoon, off the palace premises and to visit a few of the nearby temples and ruins. 

Well, shit. Bucky wants to go—and he’s going to go—but he feels like he swallowed a goddamn beach ball. 

As he hauls himself up off the sofa and heads over to open the door, he can’t help but wonder if T’Challa will notice his swollen belly. The shiver that runs up his spine at the thought must be embarrassment, he figures. 

Definitely. Definitely embarrassment. What else could it be? 

T’Challa had arrived at Bucky’s suite that afternoon with an armload of packages, all containing new clothes, which had been nice, and welcome, and not a moment too soon. Bucky had selected a pair of light flannel trousers with a tab closure – so much easier than a button – and one of the variously-colored tunic-style. This, too, is easy to slip into; it has some buttons on the front placket, but he doesn’t even have to unfasten them to put the shirt on. 

The trousers are loose around his hips, which is probably for the best; he’s already at a point where all his pants have to be slung low, under the little swell of his gut. The shirt is of a similar style to that worn by most male Wakandans; collarless, open at the throat. But unlike the one T’Challa is wearing, Bucky had noticed, this one has extra panels sewn into the sides, to give his belly a little extra space. 

Which is thoughtful, yes, but also strangely exciting, the notion of T’Challa noticing that he needs a bit more room, and giving it to him. It’s also a completely new experience, as far as Bucky is concerned; perhaps T’Challa is accustomed to having all his clothes tailored to fit – in fact, this is almost certainly the case – but it’s a new one on Bucky. His Hydra uniform had been custom-made, yes, but not really with fit or comfort in mind. In fact, he’d been kept on half-rations most of the time he was out of cryo so he’d fit into his gear; there had never been any question of changing the uniform to suit _him_. 

So yeah, this is a new idea, this whole thing where clothes are altered to make room for the body inside them. The world bending to accommodate him. It’s nice. 

“You look much more civilized,” T’Challa had said approvingly, looking him up and down when he’d emerged from the bathroom, and Bucky’d had to agree; his hair is still overlong, his face still unshaven, but he _does_ look better, more taken care of, than he had when he’d arrived. And better-fed, certainly; the tunic tenting over his stuffed, round belly, the light fabric skimming against the lower curve where it hovers over the waistband of the trousers. 

He’s grateful for the looser clothes that afternoon, when they tour the ruins of the ancient Wakandan temples that ring the vibranium mound, the place where a meteor containing the precious metal had landed generations earlier. The climate is hot beyond anything Bucky’s experienced, and that, combined with the lingering pressure of his enormous lunch, is enough to make Bucky feel sleepy and unfocused. The thought of enduring the trip in his too-tight jeans and clinging t-shirt is pure misery. 

“Are you a religious man?” T”Challa asks, when they pause for a welcome break at a little café not far from the palace. T’Challa orders two bottles of the country’s excellent lager and a tray of cheese, olives and dates served with wedges of flatbread, pushing the latter toward Bucky. 

“Thanks,” Bucky says, taking a date and chewing it thoughtfully. “And no.” Then, deciding that this seems a bit too abrupt, he adds, “I haven’t really been on speaking terms with god since the Depression.” 

“Ah,” T’Challa says. “I suppose that is understandable. Here, we are very close to our gods, and they take active roles in our lives.” He takes a drink, eyeing Bucky over his glass. “We’ve worshipped them for millennia and have never wavered in our devotion, since we have never been conquered by any Christian or Muslim power, as so many of our neighbors have.” 

“How come you let the temples fall into ruin?” Bucky asks. “If you’ve been worshipping the same gods all this time, shouldn’t their temples be continuously operated?” T’Challa’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “An interesting question,” he says. 

“Yeah, well, I’m trying to keep you entertained so we can sit here a little longer,” Bucky admits, one hand pressing into the side of his belly, which still feels a little full from lunch. He sips his beer, eats a little sandwich made out of flatbread, cheese and olives, then another. 

He’d swear T’Challa is blushing, at least a little – it’s hard to tell, but not impossible. “The answer is, our needs have changed – those of the gods and we who serve them. One temple might serve one generation admirably, but not the next. Our faith, and the places in which we practice it, must be adaptable.” 

“But you build the new temples somewhere else,” Bucky says. “And just leave these ruins here?” 

“We don’t wish to forget our past,” T’Challa says, with a shrug. “Just because a place does not suit us any longer, doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. We treasure our memories as a nation, and make room for them in our landscape. We need to see the road ahead, yes, but also the road behind.” 

They spend a little more time touring around the vibranium mound, but while Bucky takes in the sights, he’s thrillingly conscious of the fact that T’Challa is looking at _him,_ large, liquid brown eyes dipping down over and over again to his belly, and lingering there. 

“Shall we return to the palace for dinner?” he asks, dragging his eyes up to meet Bucky’s. 

Bucky wonders if, maybe, T’Challa might still be trying to kill him after all. 

* 

They go on this way for the next several weeks. 

Bucky takes greater and greater liberties, exploring the extent of his freedom to roam the palace compound, the city, the jungle. There seem to be no restriction on his movements, although he is conscious of the security details that trail him wherever he goes. He talks to people, wanders through the market, or spends time in his rooms, working his way through the books on the bookshelf, teaching himself to use the little computer. 

And then there’s the food; always the food. If anything, the quantities only seem to increase. It’s not long before the little bit of extra room he’d had in the new shirts vanishes, his belly nudging up against the fabric, stretching it, and it gets harder to pull them on each morning. The pants, too, are getting tight, as his waist thickens and his ass gets wider and his thighs chunk up. 

T’Challa has to have noticed, but he doesn’t mention anything about it until the evening when Bucky heaves himself out of his chair after dinner and notices that he’s torn a seam. 

“Dammit,” Bucky says, poking a finger into the opening. It’s no surprise, really, he’d had to tug the shirt down all day, and now, after a full day of eating, it rides determinedly up over his belly, wrinkling into a line at the point where his soft pecs rest very slightly on top of the swell. The seams had been stretching for days, and had finally given up the ghost; now a little sliver of pale flesh is visible where his love handles are thickening outward, little by little. 

“You…need some new things, perhaps?” T’Challa asks solicitously, and - god – he reaches out one hand, as if he might _touch_ Bucky’s swollen, gurgling middle. He pulls his hand back at the last second, to Bucky’s regret. The thought of T’Challa touching him, perhaps rubbing his overfull tummy, massaging him gently with his beautiful hands, is not at all unwelcome. 

“Perhaps,” he says, drily, framing his gut between his hands and hefting it gently up and down in illustration of the exact size of the problem. Which is big, and only likely to get bigger the longer he’s out of cryo. 

“I – ah, I – I will have some things sent to your rooms,” T’Challa manages to say. It’s the only time Bucky’s ever heard him sound less than perfectly self-assured. 

“That would be great,” Bucky says. He hesitates, then asks, “Any word on the chamber?” 

“The chamber,” T’Challa says, as if he doesn’t know what Bucky’s talking about, but then his expression clears as he recalls. “Oh yes – yes, in fact the doctors would like to see you this week. They may have repaired the problem, and they wish to run some tests. If you would like, I’ll ask them to see you whenever you like. Tomorrow, if that is what you want?” 

_If that is what you want._ Bucky feels a pang of doubt, and meets T’Challa’s gaze, which is, as usual, almost totally inscrutable. “I’ll talk to the doctors,” he says. “Tomorrow.” 

* 

T’Challa gets to the lab before Bucky does, and paces the room as he waits. 

“Your highness seems restless,” Aneka says, eyeing him from her post by the door. “I wonder why.” 

“I have many other obligations,” he says, flatly. 

“Of course,” she agrees. 

“It is taking these scientists an inordinately long time to repair what seems, at least to me, to be a remarkably simple device.” 

“True,” she says, nodding. 

“It is little more than a glorified refrigerator,” he says, waving a hand at the chamber and the little group of scientists surrounding it. “Why is this so difficult?” 

“I hardly know.” 

“I am weary of waiting for them to solve this problem,” he adds. 

“Naturally. And yet…” Aneka trails off, lifting her shoulder in an expressive half-shrug. “Perhaps you haven’t minded having a guest. Perhaps you’ve enjoyed it. Enjoyed _him._ ” 

He glares at her. “Why shouldn’t I spend time with a guest in my home?” he asks, and if she recognizes the dangerous tone, she doesn’t back down from it. Which is exactly why she’d been chosen for her post, he reminds himself. 

“No reason at all, highness. I’m sure it has all been very proper and correct.” 

“It has,” he says, aware that he is coming perilously close to justifying himself to a subject, which is not something he should ever be expected to do. 

“I’m sure you want what is best for him,” she continues. “I’m sure you’re only impatient for them to fix the machine, like you said. So he can find peace.” 

He bites back another reply, refusing to engage any further. And of course she’d been careful not to step out of line, at least not too badly, but her rather pointed agreement – which had been nothing of the sort, he knows – that he has been behaving properly, that he has his guest’s wishes at heart – gets under his skin. As she must have known it would. 

He stares out the window, thinking. He had meant it when he’d told Captain Rogers he wanted to help Bucky find peace; he really had. That is what he wants. But from the start, he’d doubted that “peace” was really what Bucky was after. Peace can only be accomplished by coming to terms with the past and finding a way forward; going into cold sleep might better be termed “oblivion.” He can understand why Bucky might wish for oblivion; but that doesn’t mean that he has to like it. 

He decidedly does not like it. 

What he _does_ like, more than he’s willing to admit even to himself, is Bucky. He likes his quiet, solid presence. He likes his occasional moments of wry humor. He likes his pretty face, his wide blue eyes, his slow, surprisingly lovely smile. And the way Bucky eats – he likes that most of all. 

He turns when he hears Bucky greeting Aneka as he arrives. She laughs at something he’s just said, then shoots T’Challa a knowing look. He narrows his eyes, then turns to Bucky with a smile he just can’t quell, no matter how much it amuses his security chief. 

He’s wearing one of the new tunics T’Challa had sent to his room that morning, dark blue, with lighter blue embroidery at the hem and along each side of the placket. His hair is pulled away from his face, exposing the softness along his jaw, the little shadow of fat below his chin. And his belly – oh gods, his belly is as broad, almost, as his chest, and rounds out the front of the shirt just enough to make T’Challa’s heart pound. 

The head doctor emerges from her office and starts to lead Bucky into the exam room, but then turns to T’Challa. “Highness?” she asks. “Do you wish to join us?” 

“Only if Sergeant Barnes wishes me to be present.” 

“Sure, c’mon,” Bucky says easily. “You can keep me company.” 

The doctor takes a series of blood samples, tests Bucky’s temperature and blood pressure, and examines the remains of his upper arm and shoulder, then steps back, folding her arms across her chest, looking him up and down. “Vitals are all good,” she says, “but we need to talk about your weight.” 

“What about it?” Bucky asks. 

“It could present a problem,” she says. “Here, step up on the scale, please.” 

Bucky hesitates, eyes sliding briefly over to meet T’Challa’s. T’Challa finds he can’t hold Bucky’s gaze, feels his face go hot as he looks away. He should have foreseen this. He should leave, it’s too personal, his being here, but leaving is the last thing he wants to do. He desperately wants to know what the number on the scale will be. 

Bucky slides heavily off the table and steps up onto the digital scale, belly actually brushing the back of it once his feet are on the plate. 

“You were 195 when you were prepped for cryo earlier this year,” the doctor says, neutrally. “You’re 235 now. Looks like it all went right here,” she adds, patting his belly. 

“Oof. Yeah,” Bucky says. “So?” 

The doctor explains, something about fat behaving differently in cryo than muscle, about the ratios being off, about needing to recalculate formulas and recalibrate machinery, but all T’Challa can concentrate on is the red, flashing number on the scale – 235. Forty pounds. Bucky’s gained forty pounds in a little under two months. And then – oh, it had been impossible not to watch – she had touched his belly, patted it, and it had sent a jolt through T’Challa’s body like nothing he’d ever felt in his life. 

“So we’re just going to need more time,” the doctor concludes. “I’m sorry, your highness. We can control the variables in the lab, but some things are beyond our control, as you see.” She waves a hand at Bucky’s middle. 

“Yes,” he says, trying to act normal, to keep his voice level. “Of course, take all the time you need. It must, above all things, be safe. Thank you.” 

He and Bucky make their way back through the medical wing toward the residential part of the palace in silence, until they arrive at Bucky’s rooms. T’Challa turns to him once the door closes behind them, looks at him, and hesitates. “I am sorry,” he says. “I know you have little wish to be here, waiting interminably. Our doctors are doing all they can.” 

“Right,” Bucky says, resting one hand on his belly. “If I’d known it would cause problems…” he trails off, a strange expression flickering across his face. “Well…I don’t know. I’d like to say I’d have eased up, a little, but it helps, y’know? All the food.” 

“It does?” T’Challa had suspected this, of course – the calm, serene look on his face after a big meal, the way the tension eased out of his shoulders when he leaned back in his chair, hands rubbing his full belly. Bucky always looks calmer, after he eats.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, taking a step closer to him. “I was pretty sure you knew that,” he adds. 

“I – I suppose I did.” 

Bucky reaches out and - to T’Challa’s shock – takes one of his hands, pulls it close, rests it on his belly, presses it into the plush curve. “And now we know the full extent of your handiwork,” he says. “Forty pounds. Not bad, huh?” 

“No,” T’Challa breathes. “Not bad at all.” Bucky releases his hand, but T’Challa leaves it there, lets it roam, moving over the fat, swollen curve a little, pressing into the softness. 

“And you’re probably still going to keep sending me enough food to feed a family of four, aren’t you?” Bucky asks, coming even closer, so close his belly bumps up against T’Challa’s flat middle. “You still want to watch me eat until I can hardly get out of my chair, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” T’Challa whispers. 

“Well then, you’d better get busy,” Bucky says. “Because I haven’t had breakfast yet.” And he closes his mouth over T’Challa’s, softly at first – brief, soft presses of their lips together, before he licks into T’Challa’s mouth hotly, and they open to one another in a long, ravishing kiss. 

They’re of a height, but Bucky’s shoulders are so wide, his fat belly so heavy against T’Challa’s body, his mouth firm and demanding on his, and it’s so absolutely forbidden for anyone to touch him this way without his express consent, so completely _unheard of_ for anyone to take control of his mind and body this way, that he feels, suddenly, very small. And helpless. Small, and helpless, and so turned on he’s almost desperate with it. 

He moans into Bucky’s mouth and wraps both arms around his thick, soft body, pulling him closer, wanton and shameless in a way he has never, _never_ allowed himself to be. And suddenly, out of nowhere, he remembers that moment, months ago now, when he’d asked Captain Rogers how long he thought he could keep Bucky safe from him. 

He’d never thought to wonder how long he, T’Challa, would be safe from Bucky. 

But he wonders now. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's where the story descends into a filthy mess of eating and sex. Enjoy!

It’s been a long time coming, this kiss. Bucky has known for a while—suspected for longer—that T’Challa wants him. Desire has always been easy for Bucky to read; he knows, usually, when people are attracted to him, and he is well aware of the fact that many people _are_ attracted to him. Before the war, it had been his big eyes and easy smile. After Hydra, it had been his menace, his threat—people were stupid that way, wanting a thing that could kill them.

And now? Now, for the first time in Bucky’s unnaturally long life, he’s on the receiving end of a kind of desire that is entirely new to him. 

T’Challa groans, letting Bucky take control of the kiss, and Bucky realizes, far back in his mind, that T’Challa probably doesn’t get to do this very often, let someone else be in charge.

Bucky takes a step forward, then another, relishing the way that T’Challa responds each time with a messy step backward, letting Bucky lead him like a dance partner, pushing up against T’Challa’s firm torso with his own heavy belly. 

When the backs of T’Challa’s knees hit the low sofa in the middle of the room, he sits down with gratifying quickness, like he can’t stay upright another second. Bucky follows him right down, bracing one knee on either side of T’Challa’s lap and straddling him, letting his belly fill up all the available space between them. 

“You want this. Want me on you like this, belly pressed up against you,” Bucky says, because he wants to hear T’Challa say it, but also just because he’s always been like this, prone to running his mouth with a partner. He’s never dirty-talked someone about his gut before, but he can improvise, if it means watching T’Challa fall apart underneath him. And, frankly, it’s no hardship to say these things. Just the thought of his big belly, the sight of it in contrast to T’Challa’s slenderness, makes him blindingly, achingly hard. 

T’Challa swallows, looking up at Bucky with a serious, almost stricken expression, pupils incredibly wide, and for a moment Bucky’s not sure he’s going to answer. 

“Yes—gods, Bucky, _yes_ ,” he finally says, his pretty accent sounding rough and jumbled in his mouth, like the words are a size too big to for it. 

Bucky smiles a little, partly because hearing T’Challa acknowledge it makes him happy, speeds his heart up to a little pitter patter he hasn’t experienced in a long time, and partly just because he finally has the chance to _look_ at T’Challa, to gaze down at him and look his fill. And god, he wants to glut himself looking at him, take in every bit of him with the same kind of greed he’s been eating all of the meals T’Challa has delivered to his rooms. 

T’Challa is beautiful, spare and strong, his body like the carnival mirror inverse of Bucky’s own, which has grown thick and overly padded, run to fat in the middle. His eyelashes are long, longer than any woman’s that Bucky can recall, framing T’Challa’s big, pretty brown eyes and softening his features, his gaze, just the slightest bit. 

And he’s a king, an actual goddamn king, and he wants Bucky. Bucky who is out of time and space, Bucky who has been a killer and a fugitive, Bucky whose left arm ends a foot too early, Bucky who has grown too fat to re-enter his own cryo chamber. T’Challa, the King of Wakanda, wants Bucky so much that he can’t catch his breath, that his hands are shaking where they’re clasped onto Bucky’s thick waist. 

It’s a heady feeling. 

“What else do you want?” Bucky asks, holding T’Challa’s gaze. 

If he thought, perhaps, that T’Challa would squirm under it, blush or turn away, he’s underestimated the royal extent to which T’Challa is used to asking for what he wants and receiving it. “I want to feed you.” 

Bucky raises his eyebrows and reaches down to palm his own gut, jostling it a little. It still feels strange, holding his own belly in his hand. It’s still so new, almost foreign, like it belongs to someone else, this ball of fat attached to his middle. “You’ve been doing that since I got here.”

T’Challa smiles slightly. “From my hand,” he amends. Before Bucky can respond, T’Challa shifts beneath him, pulling his cell phone out and punching in a series of numbers. 

“Yes, I need the usual breakfast tray delivered to Sergeant Barnes’ rooms, as well as”—he pauses, looking speculatively at Bucky—“ice cream. Vanilla. A lot of it.” He’s silent for a moment. “Yes, that’s fine. Thank you.” 

“Ice cream for breakfast, huh? Seems kind of extravagant,” Bucky says.

“I’m a king,” T’Challa says simply, with a certain kind of careless authority that Bucky can’t help but admire. It’s not something that he’s ever seen in anyone before, and he assumes it’s because he’s never known someone who was truly born to power. He’s known powerful men—several of them, more than he has cared to know, sometimes—but none of them have given orders with such aplomb, such casual assurance that their word will be law. 

“Is that an abuse of power?” Bucky asks, leaning forward and kissing T’Challa again, slower and more playful this time, knowing it won’t go anywhere. This is just for fun, something to do while they wait for breakfast. “Misuse of Wakandan funds, sending all that food to my rooms all the time?”

“Mmm, it’s my good fortune to be extremely wealthy,” T’Challa mumbles, his lips brushing against Bucky’s with every word. 

*

T’Challa’s hands are shaking when he picks up the first sticky breakfast roll and holds it out for Bucky. The roll trembles against Bucky’s lips, and he—damn him—grins and grabs T’Challa’s wrist to steady it. “Easy,” he says, gentle, like he’s soothing a stray kitten instead of the Black Panther, before he takes a bite. 

Bucky’s lying prone on the sofa, lounging half upright, belly mounded in front of him, spilling over his waistband, looking calm and self-assured, like he doesn’t see anything strange at all about letting T’Challa feed him. Like he’s happy to indulge T’Challa this way. 

God, he’s beautiful, and T’Challa wants to feed him until he can’t take another bite, and then feed him a little more. 

Which is a fucked up thing to want. T’Challa doesn’t know where it came from, this desire to do this thing—this admittedly strange, inexplicable thing—with this strange, damaged foreigner who has sad eyes and a big belly. But gods, he’s so happy that Bucky is willing to let him do it. 

It’s harder than he expected, feeding someone. His hands won’t stop trembling, for one thing, which Bucky seems to find endearing, but it’s also just awkward, scooping up food with a utensil not directed at his own mouth, trying to wield a fork without poking Bucky in the face. 

“My god, a man could starve to death over here,” Bucky says at one point, lip quirked up in amusement as T’Challa selects a piece of crispy fried flat bread. 

Smartass. “You’re hardly starving,” T’Challa retorts, setting down the bread in order to reach out and lay a careful hand on Bucky’s tummy. He’s eaten a platter of scrambled eggs and spicy sausage, drunk a tall glass of milk and had nearly all of the breakfast rolls by now, but his belly doesn’t feel as tight as T’Challa expects. It’s still _soft_ , a testament to how thick the layer of pudge at his belly has become. He’s grown fat, forty additional pounds-- _forty_ , the number is still ringing in T’Challa’s ears—piled onto his thick frame in less than two months. 

“Feels like it,” Bucky says, his voice soft and husky, wide gray-blue eyes surprisingly serious when he looks at T’Challa. And maybe it does. Maybe, for whatever reason, after years of cryo and abuse, he does feel like he’s starving. 

T’Challa picks up the abandoned flatbread and holds it back out to Bucky, eyes still locked with his. “We wouldn’t want that,” he murmurs, meaning it. He wouldn’t want that. Wouldn’t want Bucky to be hungry, for him to want for anything, for a single second. 

It’s amazing, the way that Bucky can work through so much food. T’Challa has known that Bucky eats a lot—God, it’s been all he can think about since Bucky walked out of cryo—but watching each bite disappear from his own hand, each decadent slice of fruit in whipped cream or piece of sticky sweet bun that passes by Bucky’s soft, pink lips, is another experience entirely. It is just so much food. 

By the time T’Challa’s holding the last roll up, Bucky looks truly full. His chubby cheeks are pink, and there’s a light sheen across his forehead, as if eating like a pig is a physically exerting activity. He’s pressing gently on the side of his gut, shifting against the sofa a little in a struggle to get comfortable, and his breath is shallow. His tunic is pulled tight over his belly, an inch or two of soft underbelly peeking out from underneath. He looks glutted, full and lazy, and _oh_ , he looks so beautiful. 

“There’s still ice cream,” T’challa says when the last bite of sticky roll is going down Bucky’s throat. 

“Christ, T’Challa, you’re trying to kill me again.” 

T’Challa smiles a little. He likes hearing his name on Bucky’s lips. 

“It’s melting,” he says, picking up the tub of ice cream. “It won’t be hard to eat.” 

Bucky hiccups, his big tummy jerking painfully. “Easy for you to say. Feel like I’m about to pop.” 

“Just a little, then,” T’Challa says, shamelessly spooning up a soft, melty bite and holding it out. 

“Goddamn,” Bucky swears, words muffled by ice cream. 

He really _can’t_ eat that much more. It’s obvious his tummy is packed full, gurgling audibly, and he can barely catch his breath between bites of rich, fattening ice cream. He looks glutted and swollen, full and lazy, but every time T’Challa brings the spoon to his lips, he manages to swallow down another bite, gasping a little each time. 

He looks beautiful, and T’Challa wonders if it’s possible to die of sexual desire. 

“No more,” Bucky finally groans, shaking his head. “Hurts.” 

T’Challa abandons the ice cream immediately. “Are you all right?” 

Bucky smiles, managing to look cocky even though he’s practically pinned to the sofa by his own bloated stomach. “Course,” he says. “Just—just really full. You should touch it now.” 

T’Challa reaches out, wanting nothing more than to do exactly that, but Bucky stops him, wrapping his fingers gently around T’Challa’s wrist. “Wait.” And, to T’Challa’s complete and utter joy, Bucky starts unbuttoning his tunic, right hand working carefully at the straining buttons. 

“Let me,” T’Challa says, brushing Bucky’s hand aside, and then he breathes a soft “oh,” an involuntary response, when he’s got Bucky completely divested of his shirt. He’s been imagining this, Bucky’s bare belly, his chest, his shoulders, for so long, but seeing it now, stuffed so full and at T’Challa’s hand—it’s breathtaking. 

“Oh,” Bucky repeats, looking partly amused, partly shy. 

“You—you are beautiful.” 

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “What I am is full.”

“That too,” T’Challa agrees, cupping the bloated curve of Bucky’s tummy with something close to reverence. “You’ve grown so round, so full.”

“You keep sending me food,” Bucky jokes, smothering a hiccup in his hand. T’Challa relishes the way his gut bounces with it. 

“Look,” T’Challa says, tracing his finger along the soft, chubby curve of Bucky’s underbelly. A few pink lines mar Bucky’s pale white skin, creeping up his gut, sneaking over onto his love handles. “You have marks, here.” 

Bucky leans forward a little, peering over the curve of his heavy belly, panting at the effort. “Scarred up everywhere,” he says, his voice hard to read. 

“I like your scars,” T’Challa says simply. “Especially these.” He thumbs over them again, tracing a little pink line and then pinching a handful of soft chub. “These that you got because of pleasure, not pain. These are good.” 

Bucky smiles, leaning back and exhaling, so that his gut swells forward even more, amazingly big. “Charmer.”

*

T’Challa has rubbed his belly, shaped and reshaped the fat curve of it, leaned over him and kissed him slow and dirty, mouths messy and hot against each other, until Bucky’s cock is throbbing—but he can’t quite work up the energy to push himself up, no matter how much he wants to.

And god, does he want to. His cock and his gut are both electrified, his whole body on fire, and he wants to do so many things. 

“Darlin’, this isn’t quite what I had in mind for a first time,” he finally says, drawling the words out slow and sweet, like he’s talking to a dame instead of a king. “When I pictured it—and honey, I pictured it so many times—I’d lay you down real sweet and slow, kiss you all over, down your chest and over your hipbones, kiss your pretty cock, touch you _everywhere_ , put my fingers inside you so gentle, get you so ready you could hardly stand it, make it feel good for you.” He grunts, shifting a little and frowning with the effort to move under the weight of his own enormously swollen belly. “Didn’t think I’d be stuffed so full I can’t catch my breath, so full I can barely move.” 

T’Challa smiles, pupils blown, breath as short as Bucky’s, his hands skimming and re-shaping Bucky’s fat tummy over and over again, like he can’t resist it. “Oh?”

Bucky nods. “Gonna have to let you do all the work, honey.” He kisses T’Challa again, even though it hurts to lean over his belly to do it. “Think you can do that?” 

It turns out that yes, T’Challa can. 

* 

T’Challa wonders if perhaps Rogers had been onto something, putting Barnes back in cryo.

He’d seemed so forlorn, so gentle and harmless, really, with the metal arm gone, with his large, sad eyes and sweet smile. And T’Challa knows, of course, that Bucky _is_ harmless, by choice – but only by choice. 

It’s an important distinction. 

Bucky very likely could have killed him during any of their confrontations. It wouldn’t have been easy - the suit, the heart-shaped herb, the various powers he’s acquired as the Black Panther - all of this protects him, makes him almost indestructible. He’d thought himself a match for Bucky Barnes, and he was – he _is,_ but only barely. The first few times they’d fought, Bucky had held back, fought defensively, pulled his punches, used only a fraction of his strength. It wasn’t until T’Challa had encountered the Hydra-programmed assassin in Berlin that he’d understood what he was really up against. Then, Bucky – the Winter Soldier - had fought with a ruthlessness and indifference that was as absolute as it was destructive. T’Challa had never seen anything like it. 

Now, when he and Bucky are together, T’Challa can still feel the hardness of muscle underneath the thick, soft layer of pudge Bucky has accumulated over the past few months; even missing an arm, even carrying that round, heavy belly, Bucky has a self-assurance, a physical confidence, that speaks of physical power. 

_Darlin’,_ Bucky calls him, and _honey,_ pet names, names one would call a child. No lover has ever called T’Challa names like this; no one would have dared, and it makes him feel helpless, stripped of all authority with a few small words of affection, overpowered by this strong, heavy, but ultimately gentle man. 

It also makes him feel almost drunk with wanting, impossibly distracted. 

He can’t afford distraction. His role isn’t only ceremonial; it’s spiritual, political, and desperately important, particularly now, in a time of such upheaval. He has decisions to make, places to visit, people to talk to, speeches to write and deliver, battles to fight. Take now, for instance. He’s seated at the head of a table surrounded with foreign dignitaries, including the Nigerian ambassador. It’s a state dinner of the highest order, and the outcome will determine the fate of not only his country, but every country on this side of the continent. 

And he’s prepared, he truly is. He was born to do this. His country may be pushing toward some form of democracy, but there’s something to be said for a leader who was raised specifically to hold this office, nurtured on domestic politics and international diplomacy. 

And yet, every few seconds, his eyes flick to the opposite corner of the room, where Bucky is seated with a contingent of Dora Milaje. The tables are set with a variety of dishes, some what Bucky had called “poor people food,” the thick rounds of flatbread served with spiced lentils and chicken and root vegetables that have sustained the people of Wakanda for generations; some more typically European, flights of fancy prepared by T’Challa’s _Cordon Bleu_ -trained palace chef. It’s all excellent, but T’Challa scarcely even tastes his superbly-prepared meal. He can’t drag his eyes away from Bucky. 

Bucky, who exerts a magnetic pull on his eyes, his hands, on a significant portion of his attention. Bucky, who eats whatever T’Challa asks him to, whose round belly has grown visibly bigger right before his eyes. Gods. Bucky, the biggest distraction in the universe. 

“It’s a mistake, having him in the room with the Nigerian ambassador,” Ayo had said, earlier that evening when T’Challa instructed her to seat him with the royal guards at dinner. 

“He was not responsible for any of the deaths in Berlin, that’s been proven,” T’Challa says. “And the Ambassador has only ever seen grainy video footage of someone who looked vaguely like Barnes. Besides, what difference will it make, even if he does notice him, in the sea of other guests? He can no more touch him than anyone else can. He is a guest under our protection, and I won’t have him confined to quarters. I will not,” he adds, holding up a hand to forestall Aneka’s inevitable follow-up protest, “have him confined _anywhere_. Understood?” 

The two guards had agreed, grudgingly. He’d expected to see the three of them – Ayo, Aneka and Bucky – eating in frosty silence, but no, the two women are _laughing,_ Bucky leaning across the table as if he’s telling them a story that shouldn’t be overheard. A dirty story. A hilarious, dirty story that has both of his most stoic, serious Dora Milaje laughing like children in a schoolyard. 

And Bucky - his impertinent lover, who just the previous evening had whispered sweet, hot endearments to him around mouthfuls of sweets, while T’Challa had rubbed his aching cock against the curve of his full, fat belly - Bucky is being as charming as week-old kittens, and his elite guards are eating it up. 

And at the same time, Bucky is working his way through the majority of every dish on the table. Worse still, he meets T’Challa’s eyes every so often, and once – the unbelievable insolence had taken T’Challa’s breath away – he had even winked. _Winked._

He’s rarely had occasion to feel jealous. He’s probably not jealous now, either; it’s ridiculous for a king to be jealous, especially of someone whose heart is so obviously spoken for, of someone who has no country and no people and answers only to a _nickname_. 

“This meal is superb, your highness,” the Nigerian ambassador says, and T’Challa’s attention snaps back to the matter at hand. “My compliments to your chef.” 

“Thank you,” T’Challa says absently, smiling briefly and then watching as Bucky accepts a huge slice of chocolate gateau with a wide, bright smile. T’Challa feels the heat of that smile all the way across the room. He watches as Bucky takes bite after bite of cake, as he leans back a little to allow a passing waiter to drop a scoop of ice cream on top of it. _Gods._ When he leans back like that, T’Challa can see the round swell of his stomach, pushing over his waistband and resting atop his thighs. His pecs are two little pudgy handfuls sitting on the crest of his belly, and his waist rounds out at the sides as well. 

“Highness?” someone asks, and T’Challa realizes his attention has lapsed altogether. 

“Mmm?” he asks, turning toward the voice. 

“Cake, highness?” the waiter asks, gesturing to cake being pushed alongside the table on a silver service cart.

“Have it sent to my rooms,” T’Challa says, keeping his voice low. 

“The – the whole thing, sire?” 

“Yes, the whole thing,” he snaps, impatient, then, clocking the waiter’s shocked expression, he adds, gently, “Whatever is left, once all the guests have been served.” 

Across the room, Bucky grins at him, lets his eyes slide lazily over toward the door into the main part of the palace, a speculative look on his face. T’Challa gives a short, sharp shake of his head, but Bucky just shrugs, pushes his seat back, and pushes himself up gingerly, arm braced against the back of his chair. Then he makes his way out of the room. Nobody pays any attention. 

In the middle of an international summit. It’s impossible. But then…the orchestra is just starting to play, and the guests will linger over their desserts for a while. 

“Will you excuse me for a moment?” T’Challa asks. “I just have to see to something.” 

*

“You’re driving me to distraction,” T’Challa says, as Bucky leans back against the wall, pulling T’Challa up hard against his round, soft body. “I can’t believe – during a state dinner – I can’t _believe -_ ”

“I saw you send the rest of that cake to your rooms,” Bucky says. “If this is going to happen, it’s better now, before I’m too full to fuck you.” 

He pulls T’Challa closer still and kisses him, groaning as T’Challa begins to stroke his belly, first running his hands over the taut fabric of his shirt, then letting the thin cotton ruck up so he can slide his hands underneath. “This tunic is getting a little too small,” he says, a note of awe in his voice. “You’ve gained more weight.” 

“You know I have,” Bucky mutters gruffly, turning to pin T’Challa against the wall. “You were with me at the doctor’s last week, you’ve been clocking every pound.” He’d weighed in at a solid 253, which had really, honestly, comes as absolutely no surprise. He’s sure it’s more than that now. He can feel how heavy his belly is, how it grounds him, makes him feel a little lazy. He feels it pulling him forward, just a tad, when he walks. And it moves differently, jiggling more, making it hard to lean forward, taking up a surprising amount of space in his lap.

“It’s one thing to know it, intellectually,” T’Challa says, and Bucky smiles, because he sounds so serious. “It’s another thing to feel it, how soft you are, how much more of you there is.” 

He slides his hands over and around Bucky’s belly, where it curves forward, and where it’s expanding outward at the sides, even though it still looks firm and incredibly round. T’Challa squeezes a soft pocket of flab, strokes Bucky's underbelly where it pokes from beneath the tunic, lets his fingers follow a stretchmark down the curve of Bucky’s hip. “You’re beautiful,” he says, simply. 

“ _You’re_ beautiful,” Bucky tells him, catching his chin and kissing him, gently at first, but with growing insistence. T’Challa has to be one of the loveliest human beings he’s ever laid eyes on, especially like this, with his head tilted back, his mouth soft under Bucky’s, his slim, strong body pinned against Bucky’s heavy, soft one. 

“And you didn’t eat too much?” T’Challa asks archly. “You think you can…?” 

“You got some kinda nerve,” Bucky half laughs, leaning back so T’Challa can strip off his trousers and loosen Bucky’s. Bucky sucks in a little and holds his belly out of the way as T’Challa unfastens his fly. “Whose idea was it to send all that food to my table? Who’s got the better part of a cake waiting for me in his room?” 

“Who ate everything I sent him?” T’Challa counters, as Bucky lifts him up one-handed, so that T’Challa’s back leans against the wall, his legs wrapped around Bucky’s soft waist.

“Who wanted me like this?” Bucky asks. “You love it, love having something soft to push against.” He shoves up harder against T’Challa, letting his belly fill the space between them, trapping T’Challa’s cock between their bodies, and he gasps, head falling back against the wall, reaches back and puts Bucky’s cock against his hot little hole, spread open and ready.

“Presumptuous,” Bucky whispers into his ear. “And you, sitting in a state dinner like this? Thinking about me while you have a sit-down with the Nigerian ambassador?” 

“You like my presumptuousness,” T’Challa counters, and Bucky just laughs, because it’s true. 

Bucky pulls him down hard and he gasps, eyes drifting slowly closed. It’s always a sweet, thrilling moment, when they’re joined together like this. T’Challa’s eyes flutter open and he meets Bucky’s gaze. “Ah – that always feels so good,” he whispers almost ecstatically. “It feels – oh gods, _so_ good.” 

“It does,” Bucky agrees, voice rough with the sensation of it, T’Challa’s hot, tight body around him, his strong legs locked around his back, his firm, flat belly heaving under the round fat swell of his gut. “It sure as hell does.” 

He starts to move, grinding up and into T’Challa’s enveloping warmth, teeth gritted – not because it’s hard to hold him up, it isn’t – because it’s hard to hold back when they’re both being so wanton. He is fucking the king of goddamn Wakanda in an alcove, right in the middle of the African Union Summit. It beggars belief. 

“Must be nice, being king,” Bucky says, low, into the soft skin of T’Challa’s throat, letting his stubble scratch a little. “Wander off, fuck your kept boy during intermission.” 

“Y-you’re ha-hardly my – my _kept boy,_ ” T’Challa gasps, helpless with it, just fucking gone, obviously not feeling the rough stucco scraping against his shoulders and back. And all Bucky can feel is T’Challa, all around him, the long muscles of his inner thighs flexing as he works up and down, a slow, sweet grind. He doesn’t really feel like anyone’s kept boy, most of the time; but sometimes, like tonight, it’s hard to ignore the fact that he’s here entirely at T’Challa’s whim. 

“Come on, harder,” he says, hand gripping T’Challa’s hip, shoving into him, skin smacking as he starts to bounce. It’s almost too much when T’Challa really gets going, moaning and panting, low, growling moans deep in his chest with each thrust. Bucky can feel his skin getting hot, and he kisses his open mouth, biting, sucking; lets T’Challa grip his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. 

Bucky reaches around and grabs T’Challa’s ass in his hand, pulling him apart, thrusting harder, his fingers digging into the soft skin, spreading him wide open on his cock. T’Challa cants his pelvis forward and rides it out, letting his own dick drag roughly against Bucky’s belly, too overwhelmed to care what he sounds like, to care how loud he’s getting, and Bucky grits his teeth harder, still working, until T’Challa tightens up around Bucky inside, quivering and hot. 

“Jesus,” Bucky pants. “Oh, fuck, oh _Jesus,_ Jesus _Christ_.” 

T’Challa’s chanting curses or the names of gods, too, round, liquid words Bucky can’t be bothered to understand right now, but god, the _way_ T’Challa says them, his mouth open, his breath hot and dry, so turned on he can hardly think. “Oh,” is all he can say in the end. “Oh, oh, oh, oh –” 

“That’s it, baby, that’s it,” Bucky breathes. “Come on, honey, come on, Jesus, so incredible, that’s it, darlin’ –” 

T’Challa gasps and moans, when he finally starts to come all over them both, sounding completely unraveled, his voice hoarse and hitching, “ _Oh, oh, oh, oh…_ ” 

Bucky can’t help himself anymore, leaning in and fucking him hard, and that’s what makes him whimper, his head falling back again, spurting out a little more hot come all over Bucky’s belly. 

“That’s it,” Bucky murmurs, voice soft now, “yeah, that’s good, that’s right.” T’Challa leans forward, head on Bucky’s shoulder, just for a moment. They aren’t in love – it would be senseless, impossible - but there’s a growing affection between them, and the sex is so electric, they sometimes need a grace period, after. Bucky doesn’t think of it as cuddling, although that’s essentially what it is. 

T’Challa’s body feels soft and golden around him now, a warm liquid aura, everything loosening and tightening, and they jerk together, bodies still moving slightly together. It’s several minutes before either of them really moves, beyond a few involuntary shivers of lingering pleasure. 

“You alright, honey?” Bucky asks, leaning back, chucking T’Challa under the chin. “Ready to go back in there and save all of Africa?” 

“I’m not sure anyone can do that,” T’Challa says wryly, as they carefully disentangle themselves. “And I’ll need to get cleaned up first. God, what was I thinking? During the musical intermission? How long have we been gone?” 

“Twenty minutes,” Bucky says. 

Another eloquent bit of Wakandan cursing ensues. “You’ll wait for me? Later, in my rooms?” 

“Of course,” Bucky says, fastening up his trousers and belt. Then, grinning, he adds, “Might even get a head start on that cake,” as T’Challa hurries off down the hall. 

*

“Do you think about him often?” T’Challa asks later, when they’ve worked their way through a large portion of the cake. He’s sitting on Bucky’s lap, an elegant porcelain dessert plate balanced on the top curve of Bucky’s full tummy, a silver fork poised in the air between the plate and Bucky’s lips.

“Think about who?” Bucky asks, with a wry half-smile. 

“Captain Rogers,” T’Challa says.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, taking the bite of cake and chewing thoughtfully, shifting under T’Challa’s weight, trying to get a bit more comfortable. “Guess I’m always thinking of him, a little. Hard not to. Only two of us from the old neighborhood left alive. Jesus, that’s enough, no more. I’m done,” he adds, as T’Challa turns to cut another slice. 

He sets the plate and fork on the cart and snuggles in beside Bucky, seeming to grow extra limbs to wrap around Bucky’s stuffed, aching body. Bucky loops his arm around him, hiccuping a little. 

“Anyone you think of? Or try not to?” Bucky asks. 

“Certainly,” T’Challa says. “Of course.” 

“Of course,” Bucky says. 

“What do you think he’ll say, when he sees you again, your Captain Rogers?” 

Bucky huffs a laugh, then groans, because it hurts a little, laughing when he’s this full. “I think he’ll tell me I got fucking fat,” he says. “Unless I’m back in cryo by then - in which case he’ll tell you.” 

“And will it be a problem?” T’Challa asks, one hand tracing lazy circles onto the little hill of Bucky’s belly. “How fat you are?” 

“Nah,” Bucky says, yawning. “Wouldn’t make no difference to Stevie.” 

T’Challa’s quiet then, the slight rasp of his palm over the smooth skin of Bucky’s gut the only sound for a long while. “Do you really want to go back under?” he asks, eventually. “You seemed to think it was important, when you arrived here. Is it still?” 

Bucky thinks about that. He’s been out for months – but of course, he’s been out for years, really, and it hadn’t mattered; someone had found the book, learned the words, and he’d been sunk back into that darkness again. But now…he’s not so sure cryo is the answer. 

“At the rate we’re going,” he says, letting his hand join T’Challa’s on the swell of his gut, “they’re never going to be able to design a cryo chamber to contain me.” 

“Mmm,” T’Challa says. “That’s an interesting thing to think about.”

“Jesus, you’re dirty, you know that? If the people only knew.” Bucky shakes his head in mock disapproval. “Keep in mind that too fat to climb in the new cryo chamber probably also means to fat to fuck you up against a wall,” he adds. 

“Gods,” T’Challa breathes, and Bucky can tell that the thought, perverse as it is, actually turns him on. 

In a weird way, it turns Bucky on, too. It sounds less dangerous, less like being a weapon, less of a cryo-chamber emergency. He longs for such simple problems. 

“So do you? Want to go back under?” T’Challa asks, kissing Bucky’s belly, his sides, where they lap over the edge of his underwear. His kisses move steadily up Bucky’s body, from the softest part of his lower belly, up and over the place where he’s roundest, where his navel has widened into a deep divot. It feels good, those little, fluttering kisses, the firm circles he’s making with his hands. So good. _Too_ good. 

“Right now?” Bucky asks, a little hoarsely. “No, that’s not what I want at all.” 

**Author's Note:**

> We run a Dumpster Home For Wayward Orphans, come visit it on Tumblr at [delightfulexcess](http://d-lightfulexcess.tumblr.com) and [missjanedoeeyes](http://www.missjanedoeeyes.tumblr.com).


End file.
